Two DC residents are accused of pilfering trash bins with 'Take Me!' stickers

A Washington, D.C., artist and her friend were charged with theft after they collected several trash bins with a yellow sticker reading “Take Me!”

Artist Mina Karini says her intent was to convert the bins to flower planters, the Washington Post reports. Police say she and her friend had collected 51 bins; Karini says the number is wrong.

The stickers were distributed to D.C. residents as part of a program to pick up and recycle old trash bins, the newspaper says. But the city has delayed picking up the bins, many of which now sport the yellow stickers. New bins, meanwhile, have been delivered and the old bins can be found in alleys and vacant lots.

A Secret Service agent guarding a Georgetown home alerted police to the bin snatchers after seeing a hooded man “walk stealthily down the sidewalk” while collecting the bins, according to the police report. Even if the bins had stickers, police say, they were still government property.